Being unemployed is hard work.

advice to media companies from a guy who has no business giving it

Alright, media companies. Listen up! Hey! I said, listen up! Loosen up your bow ties and listen to someone who is under 50, for once. I’m about to drop some knowledge that may startle you:

NOBODY READS THE NEWSPAPER (except my dad). YOU’RE LOSING VIEWERS ON YOUR NEWSCASTS. And when it comes to Twitter, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!!! You’re not cool, hip or trendy. And you shouldn’t be. You’re PROFESSIONAL journalists.

Remember when the interwebs was all fresh and new, no one really knowing how to effectively utilize this new resource of random information and porn? Then some peon in your production or marketing department said, “Hey, Bossman/Bosswoman, I think it would be really groovy…” (they said “groovy” back then, right?) “…if we had a website that listed all the day’s top stories.”

You, being the set-in-your-ways good ol’ boy, replied, “Nice idea, peon, but how can we possibly make money on the porn-box? Talk to me when you get one of these” (points to bow-tie).

About a year later, maybe two, you went to a fancy conference in Vegas or Miami where you heard a young, bow-tied up-and-coming mover-and-shaker from corporate (who got the job because his father won a bet on a golf game at the country club with the company VP) give a speech on “The Digital Frontier” and how your company needs to be a part of it or be left in the dust. Thus, you and your counterparts set up a series of meetings discussing how to jump in to this new medium and, of course, how to make shitloads of money from it.

You hired a group of computer-nerds or an outside firm to set up your new “interactive division”, followed by the staff to actually get the content up. But the money didn’t follow. Sure, you knew enough to sell advertising on your site, but the generated revenue wasn’t enough to sustain the workforce producing it.

“We need to drive people to the web,” you said. “Let’s use our highly-rated newscast to do just that”. Anchors would read something to the effect of “…and visit on the web at [call letters].com to find out more about todays top stories”.

But it still wasn’t enough. You weren’t offering anything different on the web that you were on television or the newspaper. News was boring, stale and old in an age where people were becoming more and more accustomed to getting what they wanted instantaneously. So next came the web-exclusive content, which mostly consisted of events around and some bigger national news headlines that you didn’t report on TV because you had to get the story in on the water skiing squirrel.

Meanwhile, that peon who you shunned years ago was a YouTube sensation. He even created a podcast that had many subscribers, and was a prominent member of a web-based social community on something called “friendster”, before leaving that community for a hipper one, myspace. People liked his random updates on what was happening in his life, but more importantly, they liked his take on what was happening in the world. They felt connected with him by interacting with him through a series of comments, sparking discussion on issues that were important, or ridiculously unimportant, in their daily lives.

But how are you possibly going to make bank off of that format? Podcasts? Blogs? Letting people comment on the news? You’re the news! You tell the stories, people listen, and that’s the end of it.

A year later, another conference in San Francisco or New York. Turns out, you were wrong. One of the bow-tie clad assistants to the vice president of interactive news and moneymaking gave a lecture on having a presence in the social networking community. There’s money to be made! You have to be on the cutting edge! Too bad you’re not on the cutting edge, but more like the dull side of the razor blade. You’re relevant, but just a few steps behind.

You meet with your bloated interactive division to develop your site into more of a blog. You get a myspace page, and what the hell, a facebook page, too. You stream video from your site. Traffic to your pages has picked up, people are commenting. And more importantly, people are clicking on ads, generating a little revenue for you to show your bosses.

But whoa, hold up a minute. It seems that your viewership/readership on air or in print is declining. Dramatically. You’ve done TOO well at driving viewers to the web. No one needs your hours-old news about the Governor’s trip to an orphanage. They already know about that. A friend of their grandma’s hairdresser tweeted that she saw him and he was looking “freekin’ stellar! LOL”.

So, the scratch you were pulling from your traditional advertisers is starting to decline. And to make matters worse, we’re smack dab in the middle of a recession. Now you’re noticing more ads for the Shamwow and Snuggie. Times are tough, but you’ll get through it with more innovative, cutting-edge thinking. Twitter is where you need to be!

And that brings us to today: You’ve laid off a good chunk of your work force, including that interactive division. Traditional reporters have taken on the role of VJ, or video journalist. They find stories, shoot, edit, write, blog about and tweet them all by themselves. With your revenues declining, you need to get back some of that traditional viewership/readership so you can sell some ads, so now your main focus is to drive people to the airwaves or your newspaper. But no one is going to follow. Every twitter update you post has a link to your website, and every story on your website teases your 6pm show or traditional medium.

It is my opinion, and believe me I have no business knowledge whatsoever, that people really don’t give a shit about MOST of the news you report. Because it has no bearing on their daily, instantaneous lives. I, for one, could care less about a car accident three towns away – unless it involves someone I know. But if it did involve someone I know, I would hear about it within 20 seconds, complete with photo, via today’s social media (text messaging included). Journalism is no longer journalism. It’s more like entertaining, yet factual, storytelling with the sole intent of making money. And making money is fine. That’s what a business is supposed to do. But you can’t lose your integrity in the process. So here’s my advice, plain and simple: Get your facts completely correct. Report, in-depth, on important issues that everyone needs to know. Do some digging. Expose corruption and right wrongs. Don’t follow current trends – create them. When you focus your marketing on a medium that is already established (like facebook, for example) you drive those who have already been using it away because they can see your motivation is to take their money. However, if you are in on it from the start and have a strong presence BEFORE the rest of the world gets hip to it, you’ll be seen as an innovator – without losing your integrity. Times are tough, and you’ll probably continue to lose money in 2009, but journalism is a medium that will survive in one form or another. Listen to your peons when they have new ideas. They are the ones who have their finger on the pulse of this connected and ultra-social society. And lose the bow-tie. It looks fucking ridiculous.

Alright, media companies. Listen up! Hey! I said, listen up! Loosen up your bow ties and listen to someone who is under 50, for once. I’m about to drop some knowledge that may startle you:

NOBODY READS THE NEWSPAPER (except my dad). YOU’RE LOSING VIEWERS ON YOUR NEWSCASTS. And when it comes to Twitter, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!!! You’re not cool, hip or trendy. And you shouldn’t be. You’re PROFESSIONAL journalists.

Remember when the interwebs was all fresh and new, no one really knowing how to effectively utilize this new resource of random information and porn? Then some peon in your production or marketing department said, “Hey, Bossman/Bosswoman, I think it would be really groovy…” (they said “groovy” back then, right?) “…if we had a website that listed all the day’s top stories.”

You, being the set-in-your-ways good ol’ boy, replied, “Nice idea, peon, but how can we possibly make money on the porn-box? Talk to me when you get one of these” (points to bow-tie).

About a year later, maybe two, you went to a fancy conference in Vegas or Miami where you heard a young, bow-tied up-and-coming mover-and-shaker from corporate (who got the job because his father won a bet on a golf game at the country club with the company VP) give a speech on “The Digital Frontier” and how your company needs to be a part of it or be left in the dust. Thus, you and your counterparts set up a series of meetings discussing how to jump in to this new medium and, of course, how to make shitloads of money from it.

You hired a group of computer-nerds or an outside firm to set up your new “interactive division”, followed by the staff to actually get the content up. But the money didn’t follow. Sure, you knew enough to sell advertising on your site, but the generated revenue wasn’t enough to sustain the workforce producing it.

“We need to drive people to the web,” you said. “Let’s use our highly-rated newscast to do just that”. Anchors would read something to the effect of “…and visit on the web at [call letters].com to find out more about todays top stories”.

But it still wasn’t enough. You weren’t offering anything different on the web that you were on television or the newspaper. News was boring, stale and old in an age where people were becoming more and more accustomed to getting what they wanted instantaneously. So next came the web-exclusive content, which mostly consisted of events around and some bigger national news headlines that you didn’t report on TV because you had to get the story in on the water skiing squirrel.

Meanwhile, that peon who you shunned years ago was a YouTube sensation. He even created a podcast that had many subscribers, and was a prominent member of a web-based social community on something called “friendster”, before leaving that community for a hipper one, myspace. People liked his random updates on what was happening in his life, but more importantly, they liked his take on what was happening in the world. They felt connected with him by interacting with him through a series of comments, sparking discussion on issues that were important, or ridiculously unimportant, in their daily lives.

But how are you possibly going to make bank off of that format? Podcasts? Blogs? Letting people comment on the news? You’re the news! You tell the stories, people listen, and that’s the end of it.

A year later, another conference in San Francisco or New York. Turns out, you were wrong. One of the bow-tie clad assistants to the vice president of interactive news and moneymaking gave a lecture on having a presence in the social networking community. There’s money to be made! You have to be on the cutting edge! Too bad you’re not on the cutting edge, but more like the dull side of the razor blade. You’re relevant, but just a few steps behind.

You meet with your bloated interactive division to develop your site into more of a blog. You get a myspace page, and what the hell, a facebook page, too. You stream video from your site. Traffic to your pages has picked up, people are commenting. And more importantly, people are clicking on ads, generating a little revenue for you to show your bosses.

But whoa, hold up a minute. It seems that your viewership/readership on air or in print is declining. Dramatically. You’ve done TOO well at driving viewers to the web. No one needs your hours-old news about the Governor’s trip to an orphanage. They already know about that. A friend of their grandma’s hairdresser tweeted that she saw him and he was looking “freekin’ stellar! LOL”.

So, the scratch you were pulling from your traditional advertisers is starting to decline. And to make matters worse, we’re smack dab in the middle of a recession. Now you’re noticing more ads for the Shamwow and Snuggie. Times are tough, but you’ll get through it with more innovative, cutting-edge thinking. Twitter is where you need to be!

And that brings us to today: You’ve laid off a good chunk of your work force, including that interactive division. Traditional reporters have taken on the role of VJ, or video journalist. They find stories, shoot, edit, write, blog about and tweet them all by themselves. With your revenues declining, you need to get back some of that traditional viewership/readership so you can sell some ads, so now your main focus is to drive people to the airwaves or your newspaper. But no one is going to follow. Every twitter update you post has a link to your website, and every story on your website teases your 6pm show or traditional medium.

It is my opinion, and believe me I have no business knowledge whatsoever, that people really don’t give a shit about MOST of the news you report. Because it has no bearing on their daily, instantaneous lives. I, for one, could care less about a car accident three towns away – unless it involves someone I know. But if it did involve someone I know, I would hear about it within 20 seconds, complete with photo, via today’s social media (text messaging included). Journalism is no longer journalism. It’s more like entertaining, yet factual, storytelling with the sole intent of making money. And making money is fine. That’s what a business is supposed to do. But you can’t lose your integrity in the process. So here’s my advice, plain and simple: Get your facts completely correct. Report, in-depth, on important issues that everyone needs to know. Do some digging. Expose corruption and right wrongs. Don’t follow current trends – create them. When you focus your marketing on a medium that is already established (like facebook, for example) you drive those who have already been using it away because they can see your motivation is to take their money. However, if you are in on it from the start and have a strong presence BEFORE the rest of the world gets hip to it, you’ll be seen as an innovator – without losing your integrity. Times are tough, and you’ll probably continue to lose money in 2009, but journalism is a medium that will survive in one form or another. Listen to your peons when they have new ideas. They are the ones who have their finger on the pulse of this connected and ultra-social society. And lose the bow-tie. It looks fucking ridiculous.